{
  "event": {
    "id": "evt-eu-crma-strategic-projects-2025-03",
    "date": "2025-03-25",
    "jurisdiction": "eu",
    "issuingBody": "European Commission",
    "titleOriginal": "Commission Decision of 25.3.2025 recognising certain critical raw material projects as Strategic Projects under Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 of the European Parliament and of the Council",
    "titleOriginalLang": "en",
    "titleEn": "Commission Decision recognising 47 critical raw material projects in the EU as Strategic Projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act",
    "titleEnSource": "na",
    "documentNumber": "C(2025) 1904 final",
    "policyStatus": "in_force",
    "mechanism": [
      "supply_chain_security"
    ],
    "affectedMaterialIds": [
      "rare-earth-elements",
      "gallium",
      "germanium",
      "graphite",
      "tungsten",
      "cobalt",
      "nickel",
      "lithium"
    ],
    "affectedSectors": [
      "battery",
      "defense"
    ],
    "summary": "The Commission's first list of Strategic Projects under Regulation (EU) 2024/1252: 47 extraction, processing, recycling and substitution projects in 13 Member States, selected from 122 complete applications against the Act's criteria (contribution to supply security, technical feasibility, sustainable implementation, cross-border benefits). Recognition brings coordinated support from the Commission, Member States and financial institutions on access to finance and off-takers, and permit-granting capped at 27 months for extraction and 15 months for other projects. Among the projects represented in SMPT are five rare-earth projects for magnets, eleven naming battery-grade graphite, four of those also naming cobalt and battery-grade nickel, two tungsten projects, one gallium project, two germanium projects, and KELIBER LITHIUM, an integrated extraction-and-processing project for battery-grade lithium. The Commission puts the 47 projects' expected capital investment at €22.5 billion; that is project cost, not EU money, and is not recorded as capital.",
    "analyticalSignificance": "The EU's main project-level instrument is recognition, not money: the designation changes permitting and access to finance, and any funding that follows is a separate decision. Its rare-earth projects process, separate and recycle rare earths for magnets, the activities whose Chinese technology Announcement No. 62 placed under export licence in October 2025 before its suspension.",
    "supersededByEventId": null,
    "sourceIds": [
      "src-ec-crma-sp-decision-2025-03",
      "src-ec-crma-sp-annex-2025-03",
      "src-ec-ip-25-864"
    ],
    "verificationStatus": "verified",
    "intakeMode": "backfill",
    "lifecycle": {
      "officialPublicationDate": "2025-03-25",
      "discoveredAt": null,
      "verifiedAt": "2026-09-23",
      "publishedAt": null
    }
  },
  "framing": [
    {
      "id": "fc-eu-crma-sp-2025-03-resilience",
      "eventId": "evt-eu-crma-strategic-projects-2025-03",
      "actor": "eu",
      "category": [
        "supply_chain_resilience"
      ],
      "quoteOriginal": "to boost domestic strategic raw material capacities, which will in turn strengthen the European raw materials value chain and diversify sources of supply",
      "quoteEn": "to boost domestic strategic raw material capacities, which will in turn strengthen the European raw materials value chain and diversify sources of supply",
      "quoteEnSource": "na",
      "sourceId": "src-ec-ip-25-864",
      "notes": "Opening sentence of the Commission's press release on the first list of Strategic Projects."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "src-ec-crma-sp-decision-2025-03",
      "title": "Commission Decision of 25.3.2025 recognising certain critical raw material projects as Strategic Projects under Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 (C(2025) 1904 final)",
      "publisher": "European Commission",
      "url": "https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/document/download/9b159533-2a45-4d43-bf33-6ca5fa88440d_en?filename=C_2025_1904_1_EN_ACT_part1_v2.pdf",
      "language": "en",
      "datePublished": "2025-03-25",
      "dateAccessed": "2026-09-23",
      "sourceType": "official",
      "confidence": "primary",
      "notes": "The decision itself, read in full 2026-09-23. Adopted under Article 7(9) of Regulation (EU) 2024/1252. Article 1: \"The projects listed in the Annex are recognised as Strategic Projects.\" Article 2 addresses the decision to each project promoter, with the promoter's address; those addresses are the source for the promoters' countries. Recital (4): 124 applications from projects in Member States, 122 complete."
    },
    {
      "id": "src-ec-crma-sp-annex-2025-03",
      "title": "Annex to Commission Decision C(2025) 1904 final: list of Strategic Projects",
      "publisher": "European Commission",
      "url": "https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/document/download/e9c90c91-7492-4047-bc51-d0c9d5e89a2f_en?filename=C_2025_1904_1_EN_annexe_acte_autonome_part1_v2.pdf",
      "language": "en",
      "datePublished": "2025-03-25",
      "dateAccessed": "2026-09-23",
      "sourceType": "official",
      "confidence": "primary",
      "notes": "The list of 47 Strategic Projects in the EU, read in full 2026-09-23. Each entry names the project, whether it is an extraction, processing, recycling, substitution or integrated project, the country, the promoter and the strategic raw materials it contributes to. Only projects naming a tracked material are recorded as designations."
    },
    {
      "id": "src-ec-ip-25-864",
      "title": "Commission selects 47 Strategic Projects to secure and diversify access to raw materials in the EU (IP/25/864)",
      "publisher": "European Commission",
      "url": "https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_864",
      "language": "en",
      "datePublished": "2025-03-25",
      "dateAccessed": "2026-09-23",
      "sourceType": "official",
      "confidence": "primary",
      "notes": "Press release, read in full through the press corner's document API on 2026-09-23. States the benefits (coordinated support on access to finance and off-takers; permit-granting capped at 27 months for extraction and 15 months for other projects) and an \"expected overall capital investment of €22.5 billion\" for the 47 projects, which is project cost, not EU money, and is not recorded as capital."
    }
  ]
}